Bad Santa: Difference between revisions
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The film begins in a bar on a December night in [[Milwaukee]], where the viewer is introduced to Willie T. Stokes (Thornton), a bitter, lonely man and alcoholic. Willie works the Holiday seasons as a mall Santa along with his dwarf friend Marcus (Cox), who works as the Santa elf. Every Christmas eve, the duo disables the security alarm after the mall closes and they then rob the mall safe. Afterwards, Marcus lives with his wife Lois while Willie goes to Miami and wastes all his money on booze. |
The film begins in a bar on a December night in [[Milwaukee]], where the viewer is introduced to Willie T. Stokes (Thornton), a bitter, lonely man and alcoholic. Willie works the Holiday seasons as a mall Santa along with his dwarf friend Marcus (Cox), who works as the Santa elf. Every Christmas eve, the duo disables the security alarm after the mall closes and they then rob the mall safe. Afterwards, Marcus lives with his wife Lois while Willie goes to Miami and wastes all his money on booze. |
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At the new mall they plan to steal from, Willie's alcoholic rants arouse the suspicion of mall |
At the new mall they plan to steal from, Willie's alcoholic rants arouse the suspicion of mall manager Bob Chipeska (Ritter), who tells security chief Gin (Mac) to investigate. Willie meets bartender Sue (Graham), with whom he begins a relationship. He later meets a pudgy pre-teen whom he nicknames the Kid (Kelly) during their visit in the mall. When he leaves the bar and is confronted by a hostile, Hindustani man ([[Ajay Naidu]]) (who is in apparent homosexual denial and mistakenly believes that Willie thinks him gay), the Kid stops the man from raping Willie. A lonely, unpopular boy, the Kid lives with his senile grandmother ([[Cloris Leachman]]); his mother is dead and his father is in prison for [[embezzlement]]. After taking the Kid home to his mansion, Willie breaks into the Kid's father's safe and borrows his father's [[BMW]], spending the money on more booze. |
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Chipeska finds Willie having [[anal sex]] with someone in a changing room in the mall and tries to fire him; however, Willie and Marcus threaten to sue Chipeska for discrimination against African-American "little people" like Marcus if they are fired, and Chipeska does not fire them. Marcus is irritated by Willie's risky behavior, including his new car, his alcoholism, and flirting with every customer. When Gin breaks into Willie's motel room posing as a police officer, Willie takes up residence with the Kid, which proves to be quite a convenience. During his time spent with the Kid, Willie starts to show small signs of kindness, offering advice when the Kid is beaten by bullies and playing checkers with the Kid. |
Chipeska finds Willie having [[anal sex]] with someone in a changing room in the mall and tries to fire him; however, Willie and Marcus threaten to sue Chipeska for discrimination against African-American "little people" like Marcus if they are fired, and Chipeska does not fire them. Marcus is irritated by Willie's risky behavior, including his new car, his alcoholism, and flirting with every customer. When Gin breaks into Willie's motel room posing as a police officer, Willie takes up residence with the Kid, which proves to be quite a convenience. During his time spent with the Kid, Willie starts to show small signs of kindness, offering advice when the Kid is beaten by bullies and playing checkers with the Kid. |
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Revision as of 02:42, 10 July 2007
| Bad Santa | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Terry Zwigoff |
| Written by | Glenn Ficarra John Requa |
| Produced by | Joel and Ethan Coen (executive) Sarah Aubrey John Cameron Bob Weinstein |
| Starring | Billy Bob Thornton Bernie Mac Brett Kelly Tony Cox Lauren Graham |
| Distributed by | - USA - Dimension Films - non-USA - Columbia Pictures |
Release dates | November 26, 2003 |
Running time | 91 minutes (theatrical) 98 minutes (unrated) 88 minutes (director's cut) |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18,000,000 (estimated) |
Bad Santa is a 2003 film directed by Terry Zwigoff, produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Billy Bob Thornton as the title character and Tony Cox as his partner-in-crime. Bernie Mac, John Ritter (in his final live-action film), Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom, Ethan Phillips, Brett Kelly and Cloris Leachman are also featured.
The unrated version of the film was released on DVD in 2004 as Badder Santa. A director's cut DVD has been released in November 2006. It features director Terry Zwigoff's cut of the film (including an audio commentary with him and the film's editor), but is three minutes shorter than the theatrical cut and ten minutes shorter than the unrated version.
Production
Bad Santa was Terry Zwigoff's fourth film and was by far his most mainstream, following the very limited releases of Crumb and Ghost World. The original screenplay was written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who had previously been known for the 2001 family film "Cats & Dogs". They would later go on to, alongside Bill Lancaster (the original screenwriter although has since died but is still credited with), writing the screenplay for the 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears, also starring Billy Bob Thornton. Prior to filming, producers Ethan and Joel Coen and director Terry Zwigoff did re-writes on the script, though they went uncredited by WGA rules.
The casting directors experienced a bit of poor timing, as several different actors interested in the role of Willie were unable to participate due to scheduling conflicts. Among them were Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray, who were already filming Something's Gotta Give and Lost in Translation, respectively. Coincidentally, Nicholson, Murray and Thornton all received Golden Globe nominations that same year for their roles, with Murray winning the award.
Plot
The film begins in a bar on a December night in Milwaukee, where the viewer is introduced to Willie T. Stokes (Thornton), a bitter, lonely man and alcoholic. Willie works the Holiday seasons as a mall Santa along with his dwarf friend Marcus (Cox), who works as the Santa elf. Every Christmas eve, the duo disables the security alarm after the mall closes and they then rob the mall safe. Afterwards, Marcus lives with his wife Lois while Willie goes to Miami and wastes all his money on booze.
At the new mall they plan to steal from, Willie's alcoholic rants arouse the suspicion of mall manager Bob Chipeska (Ritter), who tells security chief Gin (Mac) to investigate. Willie meets bartender Sue (Graham), with whom he begins a relationship. He later meets a pudgy pre-teen whom he nicknames the Kid (Kelly) during their visit in the mall. When he leaves the bar and is confronted by a hostile, Hindustani man (Ajay Naidu) (who is in apparent homosexual denial and mistakenly believes that Willie thinks him gay), the Kid stops the man from raping Willie. A lonely, unpopular boy, the Kid lives with his senile grandmother (Cloris Leachman); his mother is dead and his father is in prison for embezzlement. After taking the Kid home to his mansion, Willie breaks into the Kid's father's safe and borrows his father's BMW, spending the money on more booze.
Chipeska finds Willie having anal sex with someone in a changing room in the mall and tries to fire him; however, Willie and Marcus threaten to sue Chipeska for discrimination against African-American "little people" like Marcus if they are fired, and Chipeska does not fire them. Marcus is irritated by Willie's risky behavior, including his new car, his alcoholism, and flirting with every customer. When Gin breaks into Willie's motel room posing as a police officer, Willie takes up residence with the Kid, which proves to be quite a convenience. During his time spent with the Kid, Willie starts to show small signs of kindness, offering advice when the Kid is beaten by bullies and playing checkers with the Kid.
Willie has a series of incidents in the mall in-between his time spent with the Kid and Sue. During one of his lunch breaks, he yells at a mother and son after Marcus insults him. Marcus is continually disgusted by how unreliable Willie is. Gin discovers the history of Marcus and Willie and he demands half of the money and merchandise they plan to steal, creating further friction between Willie and Marcus. Willie goes to the mall drunk the next day and destroys a reindeer display in a drunken rage, shocking the customers. Marcus and Gin try to cover it up but get into an argument; the next day, Willie tries to commit suicide, giving the Kid a letter to give to the police when they would come to collect his corpse, explaining the mall robbery. He is motivated to live when he sees how the bullies have blackened the Kid's eye. He beats up the lead bully as his friends run away and then gives the Kid an unsuccessful boxing lesson.
The Kid gives Willie a Christmas present in advance: a wooden pickle he bloodied when he cut himself carving it. He then gets a low-grade report card (all C's or 65%, with the exception of one B), hoping to make Willie happy (from this Willie learns the Kid's name: Thurman Merman). Thurman asks for a pink stuffed elephant this year, since he hadn't received any presents for the past two years.
That night, Marcus and Lois kill Gin when he refuses to take less than half the money. On Christmas Eve, Sue helps Willie and Thurman decorate their house for Christmas. Willie leaves to rob the mall with Marcus; after cracking the safe, Willie takes a stuffed elephant for Thurman. Marcus appears with a gun, and reveals that he is going to kill Willie because he is becoming more unreliable every year. However, the police arrive, having been tipped off by Willie's letter which Thurman gave to them. Willie flees and speeds to Thurman's house in order to give him his present; he arrives at the house and is shot eight times by the police in front of the whole neighborhood.
Afterwards, Thurman gets his present and it is revealed that Willie has survived and will avoid prison time because of the letter he gave the police, and because the Phoenix, AZ "police shooting Santa Claus in front of children was more messed up than Rodney King". Marcus and Lois are both arrested and in prison. Willie, Sue and Thurman will form a kind of family upon Willie's release from the hospital as Sue is legally given guardianship of Thurman. In the final scene, Thurman wears a shirt that Willie sent him which says on the back, "Shit happens when you party naked" together with his original present. When Thurman goes out for a bike ride, one of the bullies appears and starts to taunt Thurman, but Thurman kicks him in the crotch and rides off giving the bully the middle finger.
Reaction
The movie attracted bad publicity before its release from critics who likened the movie to an "evil twin" of Miracle on 34th Street and chided The Walt Disney Company for allowing such a beloved figure as Santa Claus to be trashed by its Miramax subsidiary. [1]
Ultimately, the film maintains a rating of 7.2 at the Internet Movie Database, an aggregate "Fresh" rating of 74% at Rotten Tomatoes, and a positive 3 1/2 stars out of four by critic Roger Ebert. The film was also a box office success grossing over $60 million at the US box office.
This was John Ritter's last live-action role—he died prior to its release—and it is dedicated to him.
Sequel
Recently, Billy Bob Thornton mentioned that a sequel to Bad Santa known as "Very Bad Santa" will be released in late 2008
Trivia
- The phrase "you people" was also used in Me, Myself, and Irene in which was used by Jim Carrey to Tony Cox.
- When Willie smashes the top of his alarm in his apartment (in the hopes of shutting the alarm off) the digital clock flashes that the alarm is set for twelve o'clock, but, the clock on the alarm displays that it is only ten o'clock when the alarm went off.
- Billy Bob Thornton admitted to being genuinely intoxicated during filming.